Reigning Motorpoint British Supersport Champion Billy McConnell has run his first shakedown laps on the Smith’s BMW S1000RR he will run when he returns to the MCE British Superbike Championship this season.

The Adelaide-born rider is on track in the Spanish foothills right now alongside Supersport team-mate Jake Dixon and Graeme Gowland, as well as the BeWiser Superbike team.

"It has been going really well so far. I had been lucky enough to do some laps on the BMW road bike before we headed here to get some track time in, but the race bike obviously is different again so we have been trying to get as many laps as possible under our belts,” he said.

"We have started making a few small changes with the bike, but for me I have been getting used to riding the Superbike again and on the slick tyres. We have done some runs on new and used tyres to give me a feel of how the bike reacts, but already the package feels much better than I expected. Everything about the BMW is so user-friendly and now we can just keep building up throughout this test."